Study: Amazon Fire Phone launch slow, hampered by AT&T deal

Offers comparison with G3, Droid Ultra sales, but no comment on phone criticisms.

Based on Amazon's selective PR history, the company isn't likely to reveal exact sales for its recent Fire Phone any time soon—unless the company's first-ever smartphone goes gangbusters. A recent study appears to put any hopes for a record-smashing debut in serious doubt. Rather than wait for the official word, online advertising company Chitika Insights pored over its data to figure out just how well the Fire Phone has performed out of the gate—and how AT&T exclusivity may have factored in to its initial performance.

On Tuesday, the advertising agency published a study that compared recent new phones' mobile browser advertising impressions, comparing them across their first 20 days. In its comparison of the Amazon Fire Phone, the LG G3, and the Motorola Droid Ultra, Chitika measured overall web usage, as opposed to unique users, and it published percentage estimates of total North American web traffic as opposed to hard numbers for each device, but the results were still plenty revealing.

Usage of the G3 over the 20-day span more than tripled that of the Fire Phone, and Chitika pointed out that LG enjoyed a hefty bump on the days that Verizon and Sprint began selling their versions of that phone. Meanwhile, the stats for the Droid Ultra, which launched as a Verizon exclusive in North America, more closely mirrored those of the Fire Phone, with slow-but-steady growth toward the 0.02 percent mark. (Motorola still outpaced Amazon by the end of its 20-day period.)

Chitika's report hinges mostly on the assertion that AT&T exclusivity was to blame for the Fire's performance, based on those charts' correlations with other exclusivity deals. It also alludes to Amazon's smartphone newness and a prediction of a "long-play" strategy, but it fails to mention the Fire Phone's relative drubbing in reviews, not to mention its break from the Amazon norm of undercutting rivals by way of price point—both of which may have played a far bigger role than a carrier deal in ultimate sales figures.